You know the kid who was always picked last for teams in gym class?  Or at least last of the not-totally-loser kids?  Did you ever wonder what happened to that kid?

Did she grow up to be a world-class athlete?  Did she channel her athletic frustrations into intellectual pursuits and become a famous professor, writer, world leader or software developer?  Or, did she never manage to get over  the frustration of being a bad athlete and turn into a serial killer, a sadistic torturer of small animals, the kind of woman who insists on asking every man she dates “Do I look like I’ve gained a few?  No really.  Do I?” 

I’ll tell you what happened to her.  She became the kind of person who still sucks at sports.  Even the electronic ones.  She understands the angst of the woman told by her Wii Fit that she’s fat.  She knows the pain of missing out on perhaps the biggest electronic fad of our time, The Wii, simply because she still, to this day, cannot hit even a virtual ball.

She is me.  I am she.  Let the gods of hand-eye coordination spite me down and make me do pushups while I’m there.

But my days of woe are gone.  My decades of inability to play even the  simple game of Pong are now erased by my newfound ability to play what just may be the greatest video game of all: Wii Music.

I love this game.  First of all, there is no winning and losing. For the biggest all-time sports loser (aka yours truly) this is a gift.  Second of all, there is no hand-eye coordination involved.  Ding Ding.  Third of all, for once, I can play along with my kids and not feel like a complete and total loser because of my inability to perform at even a remotely competent level.  I am remotely competent at Wii Music.  Even better than that.  I’m rockin’. (Only don’t tell my kids I used that word – they’d be humiliated.)

Wii Music lets you simulate playing music on the piano, violin, and trumpet. You can take lessons, have jam sessions, improvise, make albums.  It’s a theatre-geek’s dream game.  Hello?  Bad athlete + good singing voice = die-hard theatre geek.  Welcome to my High School world. 

I have written before about the Wii making me throw my parental screen-time convictions out the window, about it reminded me of the torture chamber we referred to as Junior High.  But for once, I can proudly say:  I am good at something on the Wii.  I can jam, I can rock, I can swing — (’cause it isn’t a bat) and make a hit every time. (bad pun intended)

Thank you Wii Music, for finally making me feel first string.  (Even worse pun intended)  Now if ony they’d come up with Wii Eating.  Now, that I would be GREAT at!